Topic: Ethics

Vivek Krishnamurthy studies international issues in internet governance as a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Cyber Law Clinic. He spoke with the Gazette about the legal implications of the breach for Facebook, the laxity in U.S. privacy protections, and how Facebook’s difficulties may mark the end of the tech industry’s long deregulation honeymoon in this country.

Animal law advocates from a variety of disciplines and perspectives came together at Harvard Law School for the fourth annual Animal Law Week, an event co-hosted by the Harvard Animal Law & Policy Program and Harvard Law School’s Student Animal Legal Defense Fund .

The #MeToo movement’s roots and its present and future impact were the focus of a discussion with Harvard scholars on Feb. 26 at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, featuring HLS Prof. Jeannie Suk Gersen, Harvard Profs. Jill Lepore and Evelynn Hammonds, and Ann Marie Lipinski, curator of Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism, as moderator.

Last week, the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University launched AIandInclusion.org, a new website related to preventing bias in algorithms and ensuring that voices and perspectives from diverse populations help shape the future of artificial intelligence.

On Jan. 23, the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School and the Center for Advanced Studies in Biomedical Innovation Law (CeBIL) at the University of Copenhagen launched a new collaboration, the Project on Precision Medicine, Artificial Intelligence, and the Law (PMAIL).

Bryan Stevenson has battled through the courts, defending the wrongly convicted and children prosecuted as adults, while condemning mass incarceration and racial bias in the criminal justice system; now, he is embarking on a fight to start a national conversation about the painful legacy of slavery, which he says “continues to haunt us today.”

This fall, the Harvard Law School Library hosted a series of book talks by HLS authors, with topics ranging from Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts to a Citizen’s Guide to Impeachment. As part of this ongoing series, faculty authors from various disciplines shared their research and discussed their recently published books.

This year, Jon Hanson challenged his torts students to create short documentaries about how tort law might apply to social issues and problems on the edge of the law’s reach. This challenge culminated in the inaugural Torty Awards–a screening and ceremony celebrating their inventive films on climate change, driverless cars, and the Flint water crisis.

Managing Director of the Cyberlaw Clinic Professor Chris Bavitz discusses some of the concerns and opportunities of risk assessment tools for criminal justice reform efforts, and the Berkman Klein Center’s work on Ethics and Governance of AI initiative in partnership with the MIT Media Lab.